Valiant Emblem
by Wish counselor
Summary: Collegiate Graduate photojournalist Motto Lokomo returns to the Hati region nearby Johto and Kanto invited by a mysterious man. Turns out that the invitation will involve his greatest fear of bug type pokemon. Accompanied by a victimized butterfree, both are forced to help each other solving on the mystery of an abandoned school. Turns out the ruined school has secrets kept hidden.
1. Strawberry Butterfree

**Valiant Emblem:**

**Chapter 1: Strawberry Butterfree**

Have you ever disliked bug types?

For once, I was afraid of getting close to one. Or run away at the first sight. I had that ever since I was a kid. The name is Motto, thirty two years old, masculine gender, status: single, Scholarship: Master's Degree.

I'm a biology geek and my friends are just like your ordinary rural friends. Let's just say that I live in a poor country. I had a lot of my younger days escaping my poverty through my studies and dedication. Twelve to sixteen years later, I became an influential icon to my family. Too bad I can't use my geeky side when I'm outside of the university. My region, Hati, is a nature loving country. There aren't a lot of modern cities that are closely related to Goldenrod of Johto. Sure they're nature loving to. But Kanto kind of ruins the natural forestry and tourism. It's just my place is somewhat undergoing through an economical repair after last year's flood disaster, and political burglary of Hati's natural property.

Hati is a natural tropic region with a government respected by other countries entitled as "The most conservative in pokemon and natural biodiversity." Like Hoenn, the laws are strict when the topic is all about the pokemon and their environment. Sometimes, if you are migrating, you have to undergo through foreign registration, even if it means migrating for the sake of education. They always have a port ready for people who rather live the big dreams of whatever they want. I see a lot of kids that are trainer inspired. But me…

I'm a freelance photography writer.

My main job has been photojournalism. I recently returned to Hati from the big city of Unova as a _Pokemon Environmentalist_ and a _Photojournalist_ a week ago just to have a break with my family. That is reason number two. There's no need for me to write about my family ever since that experience.

Why did I return here you ask? What I came here for is that 'Johto biologists' are currently holding a certain festival for only thirty six contestants region wide. This unique festival travels worldwide today. But it all began when the Silph Company president built a special festival for those who cannot travel to Hoenn's or Sinnoh's Contests, or Unova's Musicals and Pokestar studios. I decide to check this place out because I receive the festival's invitation letter from one of my friends.

On the registration, all of us want to join in this festival. I'm a naturalist like person, the kind who is okay walking on the muddy roads of the countryside. That was my life before; eating wild berries with pokemon when I'm too famished to even buy a human meal.

One of my old pals thought that it would be a new pokemon discovery. Quite surprising eh…

My best friend, he thought that this year, new bug type pokemon will be featured on the grand opening. Just my luck, entomophobia is what I learned from Unova University. "Hey Motto, is that…?" one of my pals tells me that they see a shadow of sorts struggling in the forest nearby the road we are crossing.

"Pal. What does it look like? I can't see well without my glasses. Tell me!" my Biology geek ego is kicking me and my mouth once more.

"Well…."

"Great! I forgot to buy a new one from that store!" Sigh, this is a problem with the glasses I'm wearing now.

"But you said that it is broken Motto! You even apologized to the store owner herself!" My other pals, to what I could see in a blur, would be a lavender-like thing. It's kind of straight looking too with a somewhat curvy look at the back. I couldn't outline it enough that all I could see would be my two pals carrying it towards me. I hope that whatever pokemon it is would be okay.

"WE got it! We got it! This thing seems to be bleeding a bit but not serious." My second pal said.

"Does it have any pokerus?" I ask.

"Poke-what? Simple English please!" Ughh. I hate my pals for not pursuing such a knowledgeable opportunity.

"Is that creature sick? Is it affected with a virus?" I ask again.

"I think. We have to bring this fella to a hospital." My best friend starts acting like a dramatized person. Oh I'm not falling twice to that old bag of his.

"Why?!" I demand to others whenever I'm not wearing glasses.

"I'm afraid … it must be struck by something that knocked this pokemon our cold. We found this pokemon stuck and pierced by a small pointed wood from a fallen tree branch." Just great, that last sentence slaps me to the face. It's okay since I get use to this if my pals are truthful. Not being truthful acting.

_'Oh just great! Either a wild chansey, or audino would help us now. Unless we are near the river, alomomola works too.'_ I thought as to what pokemon it could be. '_If it's a venonat then arceus please don't. Moths, and worms would be the last thing I'd rather not see.'_

"Are there any pokemon clinics near our location?" knowing that I said clinic instead of center, is that they are not that informative with the latest technology. Hati is a country that barely changes, very respectable ever since the human population began to rise excessively elsewhere. Maybe genocide of the poor people who are lazy; NOT the poor who are determined to become someone worthy and escape poverty like myself. That helps too though I could get killed if that were to happen.

"Fine," I said sternly, "Just place it on top of my head if it is a flying type and lightweight."

"But … but … uhhh." Are my pals just idling there? Geesh!

"Just do it!" I regret saying that phrase once they place it on top of my head

Oh my gosh! My hair feels like being dumped by something juicy or squishy. _"Eeeeeewwwwww! This is gross! If only I could move it out of my head." _

"Sorry that this creature is quite blood stained and squishy but we've got to-" I hate my friends too at times. They gave me some miserable pranks before.

"If I can interrupt your emergency, how 'bout you come with us?" A man of somewhere in the forty's is calling us. "You, the cameraman, use this shades. Don't look up on your head. Or we will lose a pokemon's life. We have no first aid kit."

"_A pokemon on top of my head?"_ Well that is adorable. If it is just NOT gooey!

"Sure..." facing forward as I leave out a sigh, the older man approaches me replacing my worn out glasses with his shades that are black. Nice for now. But during the journey, it is creeping toward my face as if it wants to look at me. Freaky, but I said to myself, _'note my phobia'_. Oh Jirachi please this better not be a bug.

After a long walk to the main road, we enter a tent house with the Pokemon Center logo and pick ourselves a break from the nearby wooden chair. The stranger picks up the pokemon hanging in my head. I'm glad it is out of my head. When I scratch it, I hook something silky like a string. I just dump it on the floor without a care. Just too gross! Sleeping for a bit will relieve my head.

Hearing the chime hanging on the nearby door some minutes later, the man who led me to this very place comes out. This hospital tent of sorts is the necessity that hikers and travelers use out of civilization; not that I mind about it though. He removes my glasses and gives me a properly fixed one with clear, fiber glass.

"My apologies for disturbing your time. But we're thankful for your help." Now that I can see him properly, he must be a sort of modest rich guy doing whatever he can living a simple life from the way he's dressed up with a forestall tourist clothing. His accessories don't look like the kind that Black City offers. Unlike many fancy pants I've met way back in Unova.

"No problem. Just doin' what I think was right. The name's Motto Lokomo anyway." I said.

"Wait a minute. You are our thirty sixth competitor!" Me? A competitor?

"What! Hold your tongue Sir? What do you mean I'm a competitor? I never registered to this!" This is absolutely a random day for me to hear someone entitling me as a contestant.

"Welcome Mr. Motto! We've been waiting for you to join this biodiversity contest! Oh where are my manners, I'm Professor Zark Landmore; producer and manager of the contest." We enjoy our hand shaking for a while. If you ask me, I never expect this kind of course to meet. Fate I guess. He turns around to an open window tent and tells to me as to how I become a contestant. It seems the moment I took that electronic tablet letter when I was still in Unova, my profile was automatically registered. All thanks to my friends.

According to him, unlike pokemon trainers, you don't need any pokedex if you can't afford it. But Pokedexes are optional if you want to have a full study of the species you're studying.

"Professor Zark? What's this contest all about?" I ask him while I grindingly chew up a sugar cane stick. Think of it like an edible cigar minus the health risk. It's a sweet biscuit.

"This show would be to show the natural behavior of bug type pokemon," Oh no! "And this pink bug you rescued, Is a kinder version of Agehunte. You are an environmentalist right?" And with that, I faint like a pokemon beaten up in battle as my eyes are twirling dizzy in fear and shock. Bugs EVERYWHERE! I don't even care about the faint voices echoing from this crazy professor.

"Freeee…" Oh gosh. What? I wake up at a presence of a butterfree lying on my forehead as I tried to regain my composure. I'm glad that humans are not bug food. Beedrills, Beautiflies, and Scolipedes say otherwise.

"Free?" It flaps away from my head when the old guy stands up. Something tells me that this bug pokemon is playing with its wings like a little kid above me.

"Oh dear. You have entomophobia." Professor Zark said to me in a grimly voice.

"Oh my Gosh. A butterfree. A female one too. Like Grovyle's loved one. Why me little butterfly? I'm no Grovyle quality for you. I'm not pro beastiality." I am so grim with bad luck today. I swear I'll give them a smack if I have the chance.

"Freeee…" I just tilt my head to dodge it. No way am I letting it lay on top of my head twice.

"It seems to trust you; you know what? This should be your contest pokemon." he passes me an advertisement paper of his contest.

"Contest pokemon? I don't get the point of it. And why should I?" I sigh once more.

"WE are planning to make professional pokemon trainers from around the world appreciate bug type pokemon. Specifically, barely used bug types." Geesh, he's like a breeder, a fan and a trainer rolled into one. Not that it's bad. It's not my cup of Moomoo milk.

"For pokemon battles?" Oh no way I'm ever fighting. I never EVER had been on a pokemon battle.

"Yes. Encountering a shiny one is amazing. You could win our special prize." Now Zark expects me to win? Geesh. How unkind of you.

"What price?" I wasn't reading the advertisement paper he gave me.

"Check it again." I looked once again at the ad. It says, _'Want to test your skills as a bug type user? Come join the Valiant Contest! For a limited time only! You could win 50000 Pokedollars. Show to the world the potential of under-appreciated bug type pokemon!'_ "Why not just apply an ordinary battle instead?"

"I won't answer that. It's merely about business," thanks prof. "I'll test your knowledge though. How many fully-evolved bug type pokemon are recently discovered?" Quite easy.

"Thirty six Adult aged pokemon."

"Correct," Alright. "Second, who are Johto's most popular bug type duo often used by expert pokemon trainers?"

"Heracross and Scizor," Too easy, yet I find it so bad that I drop my guard this time as his butterfly lands on top of my head again. "I give up. This bug just turned me to a nest."

"Correct again," Yeah, it's obvious that their secondary types aid them than giving them trouble. But this annoying butterfree… "Final Question. What's the species name of the Sun pokemon?"

"Volcarona. The moth like being from Unova." Really? As I'm about to walk, butterfree flies off my head: flying in the nearby garden of flowers. _'My, that thing's fast.'_

"Let's follow that Butterfree for a while. Wouldn't you mind?" leaving the tent, he runs along the road in pursuit of the bug I've rescued. As nervous as I was to bug types up until now, I force myself to follow him.

Once I find Zark near the river, I shout to call him, "Professor Zark!-" I hear him only sigh. On his left is the pink butterfree shedding some tears.

"_Tears? It's crying? What happened? It better not be me the reason I've hurt it."_ I ramble inside my head "Professor, why are you silent? And why is it crying?"

"Watch the butterfree's eyes as I ask you this," I look at this weeping bug. It took me a while since I'm afraid of butterfree. "Remember when you said the word Volcarona?" Immediately, the butterfly sheds more tears facing away from me.

"How does that word hurt this one? It's not like saying the name could fry her. If it did, I'll be glad it did."

"Oh Show some empathy contestant!" Crap, vad way to introduce yourself to him. "This one must be a female Motto. Plus, on the biological pattern of its movements, a Volcarona must have burned its home. Maybe it flew away too far that it landed exhausted where you and your pals are going."

"fffrrreeee…..freeeee…"

"Why are you looking at me in the eye?" I ask the little butterfly with a puzzled look. That is her eyes glow and my mind is invaded by a telekinetic force. _"She can use psychic moves goshdarntoheck."_

"butter…..freee…." my mind says that name over and over despite the fact that I want to stay away from it. My entomophobia instincts are supposed to be driving me in fear now. But my mind and eyes are like seeing things instead. Visions are blowing up in my view. What is this girly bug showing me? A Volcarona?

"Butterfree, is this, your tale? Don't' manipulate me! Stop! Stop!" Everything goes so fast that I thought this pokemon bends me to its will. I could see a burning forest and pokemon running everywhere trying to escape the flames. Some of them are horrifying to the bone: dead pokemon bodies, even a group of Bellossom turning to ashes. They weren't alone though, humans with their fellow bug type pokemon died. All thirty six adult bug type pokemon are nothing more but dust leaves me really disturbed. Until, I could see none other than a volcarona burning everything in its path.

"Motto! MOTTO!" my world just gone shaking wild until everything falls apart. "What did this butterfree show you?" As I snap out of my mind, I could see the forest again. Butterfree is looking away from me while I gaze in shock recalling nearly everything this BUG induced inside my mind. The moment it turns away at me, it flies away.

"Whew. I just have to check on ya. Sometimes, there could be cases where even harmless bugs like butterfree become harmful to those who are helping it." What? Not only in parenting? But innocent ones too? How does Zark know this?

"I thought … only beautifly have that tendency. It's the opposite of butterfree. Gentle, caring, easy to approach, you know the details. There is NO WAY a butterfree will suck up my blood!" I said to him. But I am happy that this wild pokemon left me for good.

"Hhmmmm. That's a possibility…."His questioned expression is mixed with confusion and a foggy misunderstanding.

"What are your plans today Motto?" I'm not sure on how am I supposed to help him. "If you got no ideas, Can you do a favor for me?" A favor?


	2. I wouldn't go in There

**Valiant Emblem:**

**Chapter 2: I wouldn't go in there**

"Truth is, this is not a contest. Rather, it is a rescue mission." Did he just tell me that my invitation is a rescue mission?

I don't have anything to say when he tells me about the purpose of the letter. The letter I got back then, which came from Zark, is more of a distress letter that the cops denied to answer. His tale is that he had a family vacation with his young daughter a week ago touring one of Hati's tourist spots close to midnight. He left his daughter behind accompanied by two ace trainers as he takes a piss on the nearby comfort room. But the moment he comes out, there are no traces of life to be found. All but their clothes are left behind.

Now that I think about it, why did that butterfree just flew towards the direction of my old haven?

"Please Motto. When I heard about you from your friends, I knew that you might be able to find my missing daughter. I beg of you to save her!"

"After all this time, this contest is nothing but a fraud?!" angry as I am slamming my fist to the tree, it gives me a sore on my hand. "You could have just gone straight to the point. But no! Liars! I hate you for that!"

"I'm afraid I can't help you with your problem professor. You're like the rest of society. I'm outta here." Tracing the road back to the tent, I pick up my things and walk back to a nearby motel.

It is now close to eight in the evening as I have a steak meal to eat for my dinner after a long time of sleeping at my cabin. But, now that I think about everything that just happened, the locals told me this morning to read the warning posts. "Do not enter Magnate School. Why would the residents warn every visitor about that place? I shouldn't go there?" The more I think about their warnings, headache follows. Another factor that pops into my mind is that the numbers of the pokemon populace have been decreasing in Hati. The bug types were struck the most according to an old newspaper that I just picked up hours ago. "No way! That isn't possible! This newspaper contradicts on what I had this morning. The bug type populace of Hati bailed out completely. Something is so wrong in my region ever since I left…"

Walking at the hallways, as I enter my room and close the door, when I flip the light switch, my breath stops out of shock. The walls are coated in blood encrypting the message "Save your friends. Or let them die." Looking at the drawn arrow pointing down to the lamp desk, I grab the picture containing what looks like my friends tied on chairs blindfolded. As I flip the picture, "Find us here" is what's written. But what disturbs me is the symbol drawn on the back of the picture best described as a Snivy's Tail with an outline of a Combee around the circular medal.

"You've got to be kidding me." Sais and his buddy end up becoming hostages. But for what? I can't rely on the investigators and cops of my region. Not after they, even the pros, told me to stay away from Magnate School. Since I'm all alone, I pack myself a pouch of batteries and carry my very first video camera as I leave the motel and head back to Zark's tent just to trace back my steps.

Returning to the river of the forest standing straight, I tilt my head a bit to the left recalling as to where that butterfly flew away. Following the dirt road northwest, I stumble upon a broken and abandoned stone building buried under tree rubble. Opening my camera and night vision, there are no Bibarels or bidoofs lurking. As if the place is devoid of pokemon. Completely. Not even the bright moon is showing any form of life.

"…eee…"

Looking around, I can't find the source of that faint cry. But the moment I point my camera to the entrance of the school, I catch a faint glimpse of a silhouette running back inside. "Should I follow it?" asking this question to myself is giving me some paranoia. But as I step forward, a distant echo echoes behind. "No. That can't be…" the echo slowly gets closer and closer that when I get a clear hearing of what it is, I run straight ahead to the school panicking as if something is after me. Whatever it is. But as I record on what's behind me, the echo is barely audible as it just ends on where I'm standing now. "Great. I'm at the school's gate now. Tangled with mud, trees, and vines. Abandoned."

Now that I have a theory that that silhouette has elude me, I brace myself and enter the abandoned hallways of Magnate School. "Destroyed by mudslide. Abandoned forever."

It is rather dark on the hallway had it not been for the moon, I might end up losing my camera's energy. As I go further inside, I begin sweating amidst the cold night.

"Light the way. Guess I should call myself lucky for these torches." Stopping at the table lying next to the corner, I pick up the nearby matches and ignite the torch with fire. What I find so convenient is seeing one of the torch lamps that I discovered when I was still a young kid; it acts like a dynamite fuse which lights up the other lamps connecting to it.

Lighting the torch lamp, the flames follow the stone pipelines lighting the other torch lamps on the other corridors.

" ffrreee… free! FFRREEEEHHH!" oh no! That butterfree cry scares the life out of me crying like a dead zombie. As if I just heard a zombie butterfree trying to find me, I run to the hallway on my left escaping on what I call a zombie pokemon in Hati coming to life from the north hallway. Seeing a room with a door, I shove the door open before slamming it back closing. With no time to plan, I hide on one of the metal lockers as the door keeps on getting slammed. The moment it opens, fear crawls inside as I film with night vision as to who is pursuing me.

"_A … wait! A girl?"_ not only I am filming a completely naked girl with deformities on a horror movie scale. It acts and speaks like a zombie ala pokemon. Its eyes are close to that of a butterfree with excessive bleeding wounds as an effect of whatever it is. Slowly, it walks closer to my locker. Fortune blesses me as this, thing, looks on the locker next to me before it turns away standing next to the table looking away from me. _"I can't risk it! I think she still knows I'm somewhere here."_ Getting out slowly and quietly, I hid to the other locker just in time for that dead girl to not notice me hiding somewhere else. As I pray to Arceus that I will not be spotted and possibly kill me, I hear the cranky opening of the locker where I just hid a moment ago before that naked girl leaves the room for good. Turning off my camera after confirming that I can't see her for good, I open the locker door to be greeted once more.

"Hel…lo. Motto."

"You again." Here she is again.


	3. Butterfree's Cry

**Valiant Emblem:**

**Chapter 3:** Butterfree's cry

"_You idiot!"_ before I could even speak, she twists her small head looping my neck with her string shot. _"I was warning you not to go here!"_

"Y-you can talk?" I ask her amidst coughing up.

"_Telepathically. Don't you know what you just did?"_ landing on my head once more, I winced in pain as she bit my forehead with her small mouth until I can feel small drops of blood dripping out slowly.

"I just want to save my friends you little pokemon! I just told you to abandon me this morning. Why should I listen to you?" looking at me directly in my eyes, fear from her kind keeps me quiet.

"I used your phobia of me to entice you from getting away from this abandoned place. How a failure am I. Your friends have their fates sealed already. There's nothing you could do to them." Aside from hearing a pokemon talking to me by mouth, could that explain the mystery of my friend's disappearances? So much surprises.

"N-nothing? I-I don't believe in that so easily. What makes you think you know of what happened to them?"

"Me? Know them? Who are those people you talking about?" this telepathic butterfree asks.

"See-see? You don't even know me much butterfree. Anyway, I must find them before it's too late." As I'm about to take a step forward out of anger, her string shot tightens on my neck, choking me in the process.

"You think you could find them both all by yourself puny human?" dropping me to the ground, the look of her sharp eyes drowns my last fragment of courage on defying her once more. As if hearing her taunting me by word, not telepathically, is not enough. "Consider me on protecting you. Had it not been on your screaming, I may have found you dead by now."

"_So, that other noise I heard when that dead girl turned around came … from her?"_ Watching and listening to my video camera record, that gusty wind did come from her wings. _"I can't believe that I'm saying this to myself. But after seeing that dead girl wanting me dead…"_

"I'm starting to hate you so much butterfree. But I got no darn choice. But, if I die trying to find my friends, I swear that my damned soul will haunt you down to no end."

"Violate me all you want, I will take them all when time comes. Giratina's advocate. Something tells me that raping my soul is part of your wrath against my kind." Whatever she does now, I really don't care. Continuing my exploration with my phobia pokemon watching me like a Lillipup, it gives me shame to my own dignity that a pokemon is commanding me this time.

Arriving inside a particular classroom, shattered laboratory materials decorate the messed up floor with dried chemicals leaving their mark all over the place.

"freee…" crouching on the broken gate, that butterfree crying zombie girl is busy just being a zombified version of her dead self. Whatever zombies do that is.

"_Ain't it sad to see a little girl being nothing more than a living dead?"_ even if I hate her to roost on top of my head, I hold out a part of me screaming in public.

"Tell me then butterfree. Just when did you get to speak my tongue?" I ask.

"_Quit changing the subject. Got no sympathy?"_ nodding my head side wards to say no, I slowly crouch walk away from that dead girl. Finding the stairs that goes to the basement, I climb down with my master flapping behind me. But this darkness is not giving me any benefit at all. Thus I turn on my camera's night vision.

As I turn at the right corner, I'm tackled by another naked woman who obviously scares the crap out of my life while I scream my Aaaaahhhhhss. I try to fend myself by pushing her away from me. But this girl's too strong.

"VVVaaauuuhhnnnyyy!" if their odd pokemon cries are scary enough, this zombified woman strangling me completely naked with me seeing their decayed private parts in its full glory amps the horror factor I'm having right now.

"Butterfree! Do something! Please!" that familiar string shot coils itself around the woman's neck as she flaps her wings tugging it away from me for me to get back on my feet.

"Motto! Choke her neck now or I'll let this woman kill you now! I can't do it alone!" I slam the dead woman's neck on the wall as we cooperate on cutting its life short lest I end up dead without even finding my friends. The moment it stops moving, we let it go as it collapses on the floor. Everything that I have lived so far, I end up on what was once my school from childhood filled with dead human zombies carrying pokemon cries.

"_Just. What happened here?"_ as I think about it to myself, a twinge of pain hits me where blood is slowly flowing out of my left shoulder.

"Drats. We gotta do something about it Motto." She says.

"Why should we?" I ask my bug master.

"I'll explain along the way. But now, I need Leavanny's help."

"You mean your friend that I gladly killed just now?" the moment I turn around where my master is facing, this event will never fade away.

"You son of a bug. How insulting you are." Feeling a sharp blade touching my neck leaves my eyes looking at a REAL leavanny. Most likely pissed from what I said. "And I'm supposed to say bitch to you. But I cannot."

"I can manage this coward." After that, this butterfly commands me to follow this grassy weaver. Try as I could to say no, her bug buzz still haunts me until now. "Cowardly bitch…"


	4. Folklore

**Valiant Emblem:**

**Chapter 4: Folklore**

Sitting on a stone chair found in a room growing moss in every stone crack, the two pokemon patches up my wounds with their silky string shot just after they rinse it with water flowing from one of the cracks on the floor. My guess is that the water comes from the river. How it got connected? My guess is that the natural calamity did something to it.

"Weird and scary things are everywhere in this place. The sight of you two aiding me amidst my will is one thing. Talking my language by your own tongue, just how did you two do that?" with my camera scanning on the butterfree and leavanny. I ask out of intrigue.

"I tell you mine. Believe me or not, I am human back then." Crossing its arms, the motherly leaf bug looks into my camera as I record our talk.

"Really? Telling me the human to pokemon mythos again? That's just impossible. There's no way. NO WAY that people get turned to pokemon suddenly." I said.

"Fine. But I still find you guilty for killing my best friend. The one dead human you choked to death." She's threatening me now?

"Now you're calling me a murderer?"

"I'm just straight to the point. The soul of that body was the soul of this body I inhabit now." I'm no believer in old folklores for the most part until I witness it myself. I find talking realistic is not going to help. May as well let them give me everything they have to say. It's back in my Urban Blogging days in college.

"Tell me leavanny. What makes you say that you're human in a leavanny's body?" I ask her while my master roosts above her head; a good sense of change for my ego.

"Well. I couldn't remember my name at all. But I am a forty-five year old woman before I woke up as a leavanny. I forgot my homeland. But I'm close to a forest previously. Something happened during that one day I just couldn't remember. The only thing that sticks is panicking that I am lost on an unknown forest with a school in ruins. I've been living at this forest and ruins for a few years."

"But you know that you're in the Hati region. Right?" she gives me a nod filled with unease. "Why don't you tell me your story little butterfly?"

"It's same to leavanny's. Motto, you still remember the little girl that tried to kill you?" I said to her as to why not. "That girl is carrying this mother butterfree's soul. I don't know why I just burst out crying whenever I hear that one pokemon you said to the other human back then?"

"Volca-" like a triggered lightning, she gusts me hard as I choke on the string shot still wrapped on my vulnerable neck with gravity making my neck feeling close to splitting in half.

"SAY IT, AND I'LL KILL YOU NOW!" between us two, the other bug pokemon keeps on telling her to just stay calm.

"UhhImm sorry!" releasing me from her furious grip, I cough out desperate for some air with a thud on my back and butt.

"Say that pokemon once more next time, I'll cut your head off for real!" my lesson right now is that an angry butterfree is asking oneself to get mercilessly killed.

Minutes has passed since our rest, they decide that Leavanny will escort me to my friends since she believed –felt more so- she saw two humans going inside this School Ruin. Now that I think about my best friends, _"I hope they're still breathing."_

"There are still more human zombies inside. Humans with pokemon souls controlling its naked corpses at worst. Whatever happened, I need to find a map of this place." Sweaty from the torch flames, I wipe my bandaged arm over the side of my forehead.

"I know one room where one can be pick up." for once, I admit to myself that Leavanny is much more approaching compared to butterfree. Yet I'm still a bit distant around her despite my favor of luscious trees.

"Where is it then?" I ask.

"There's a problem on getting it though," I ask her what the problem is. "Scolipedes."

To simplify everything that happened, there are about four zombie-pokemon crying humans roaming around the first floor we're currently at. Butterfree has been our scout if any of the four are getting closer to me. If one's close though, leavanny guides me to the closest hiding spot while she distracts it from checking my location.

Oddly, these zombie-humans don't attack any of the pokemon: provoked or not. Throughout my walk, what strikes my mind is what makes pokemon no threat unlike my presence when seen. It's as if these things are built to kill humans by something. Yet another thing strikes odd inside my head.

That zombie-butterfree girl that relentlessly chased me.

"Hide on the locker now Motto." Swiftly opening the rusty metallic locker, I squeeze inside standing before closing it and watching through the tiny gaps.

"Pede? Ven… pede …pede." Hearing the cry unaware that it faces me rapidly makes me feel small as if fear is shrinking me back to a child afraid of ghosts.


	5. Gain and Lose

**Chapter 5: Gain and Lose**

Hearing Leavanny scream back through her poke-speech, I picture in my mind that this zombified human-venipede –teenager at best- opens the locker where she's hiding as well. Their conversation in their own language leaves me guessing as to what the two are sharing with each other. I keep a record of their conversation in case I ever need it until the pokemon crying zombie walks away from this locker.

"Follow me Motto. I gotta bring you to another room where that guy can give me the map you need while you hide somewhere close to me." As the night breeze chills my sweaty body, I follow her closely clinging to the protection of my feared enemy fighting my opposing enemy. But now that I think about the experience, the longer I get accompanied by these two bug pokemon –leavanny more so-, I slowly start to accept them as a necessity. Maybe I'm saying this to myself due to survival. I can't help but accept the fact that I see a new light to bug types.

A light that's fighting my past ego…

"NNOOOO! S-stop! Stop!" hath the hiding scared me, another human girl wailing on the next two column hallways entices me to get ahead. I don't care as to what leavanny warns me. Turning my camera on night vision, I film the events going by.

"Motto! I thought you're with my—"

"No time you little Butterfree! That's a fellow human in danger!" as we head back on the run while she flaps away, she starts her usual complaining that there aren't any living humans here.

"You stupid MOTTO! I TOLD YOU-" our body stand on the crossroad motionless as I witness a Galvantula being violently raped by a male zombie greedily crying its victim's cry as if it had no pity on its victim.

"Hey douchebag! Leave it alone! Eh-pokemon alone…" the bad part of my failed bravado is that, along with the leafy mother bug catching up at last, the human venipede crying zombies come running to this raping zombie's aid. The sight of their sharp teeth gives me the shudders all over. Probably mad and hungry for me.

"You stupid human! Now you brought the horde with us! If the two of us live from these guys, I'll be choking you again like what I did last time." Again with the threats butterfly, I'm stressed and scared at the same time now.

"Sheesh thanks boss. If only I really am dead back then." I said back at butterfree.

"Please stop now you two. Do that later." Thanks to this woman in a mother pokemon's body, her arms glow bright green as she swings it side wards creating pieces of leaves flying towards the charging rotting humans' heads knocking them backwards, but still standing.

"Cover your ears you two! It gonna be painful if you don't." quickly turning off my camera, as I place my hands covering my ears tightly, butterfree's wings flap quickly as she circles around us slowly for a few seconds. But when the human zombies return charging at me, my heart races as if fear makes me want to run. As I'm about to scream back at her to get it done quickly, the room vibrates strongly as those zombies ache in pain of the frequency she's creating. Bug buzz is my guess since I can hear it amidst the mild headache I'm having now.

"_Could that bug buzz be the one back then? Maybe she is telling the truth back then. Man I hate you now girl."_ As the living dead lay down motionless with the teenage zombie boy, she slowly flaps down landing on my head once more. "Really? Just do it on the floor. My head is smelly."

"I'm sorry big guy. But I'm just really tired from that powerful quiver dancing of mine that sores my wings." As much as I want to shake her off, I grudgingly owe her for saving my life for once.

"No. Why? Why? Why? I had enough. I had enough! It's over! All over!" struggle as the talking Galvantula does amidst its feminine tone for my ears, yellow sparks spark all over its own flipped body.

"Motto. Butterfree. Standback! It's out of control!" as if it has no control of its electricity, the sparks are hitting the crumbled rocks above it as I fear that the corroded metal cords connecting those rock chunks will disconnect from the blast soon. Standing behind Leavanny, we get to witness first hand on a human's soul transferred to a pokemon's body in its aftermath. In my own words, it is so bad to the point I puke on the inside. The moment is unleashes Discharge around itself and the cracking roof, butterfree's partner waves its arms around forming a circle in front forming a blue, spherical shield around us as I crouch down in fear despite the sudden protection our leafy assistant gives to us three.

After the disastrous collapse, those familiar tears flowing down from butterfree wets my already messed up hair. "Please. Cut those rocks for me Leavanny."

"Butterfree. But…" like her belief, I find this Leavanny act as this butterfree''s mother. Like, my mother back then…

"Please. Just to see that galvantula if it's still alive." Those closed sighing eyes tell me that she has to do it for her friend. With its arms glowing bright green, she swings her arms in different angles cutting the chunks of debris until it crumples to the ground as I record with my camera the sight of a squished Galvantula oozing out its gastronomical body fluids.

"I'm sorry butterfree. But I can't do anything. It's gone." Leavanny's words triggered an outburst of tears washing my hair. Right now, I feel like I get to know the scar that this young girl had to face in its body. My guess is that the memories of this pokemon stayed for this supposedly young girl to recall and relive endlessly. Then everything that she did to me starts to fit together.

"Butterfree. Leavanny. I think I finally know what's been troubling you the whole time little butterfly," Breathing deeply, I remove the batteries of my out of juice camera as I put in four new ones. "Butterfree. No. Little girl. I believe that the body you inhabit had tragic memories when it was still alive. Remember when you recklessly used confusion at me?"

"Yes. I hated that pokemon with my life for what it had done to this mother pokemon." Butterfree said. "Now it also scars me for life that I lost my human life forever."

"Looks like I'm no different from this butterfree and you two." I said to both of them.

"Really? But why?" for me, both of them deserve the truth.

"Bug type pokemon have killed my real family when I was still a beggar in this region. Though both of your species didn't get involved with that massacre, both of your species were still there aiding those monsters. Thus, why I hated bug type pokemon ever since." As I lay my back sitting on the stone wall, I shed my own couple tears of the pain I've gone through surviving that one day. "Maybe … just maybe … Arceus had us cross fates for us to meet."

"F-forgive us for what happened Motto. It hurts me to hear that we were the cause of your family's life." from the way their voices shrivel, I find myself relief that at least they understood my suffering.

"…What happens, happens. I can't save my friends alone. But if I would put my life and trust on you two, I should give both of you a name. Vana. Cybele. Got it?" I said to both of them with a hand pointing on Leavanny, then Butterfree.

Flapping once more, Cybele seals our deal, "Motto. We'll make it up for your past." Walking past the dead bodies, we head a floor lower to where my friends could be found alive.


	6. What's Pokemon? What's not Pokemon?

**Valiant Emblem:**

**Chapter 6: What's Pokemon? What's not Pokemon?**

After getting the map from the room nearby the stairs I intend to check minutes ago, we walk down the stairs diving deeper into the forgotten realms of my once childhood school.

"Looks like many portions are not lighten." Add with distant grunting in the hallway, something tells me that the event we alerted the rest below us.

"Thanks for that Motto," Cybele wipes my bitten head with her string shot. "Looks like I'll be your eyes for now human. Your camera can't light away forever. But use it when I need some rest."

As I say okay to Cybele, Vana nudges me, "I can't do anything much for you Motto. I'll just be your bodyguard. So I stay close."

"Time to scout every room. And find my friends." Walking quickly like swift accelgors, we search in every room for any trace of my friends. I still remember this place as the only school in the world that builds itself underground. The first four floors are alright to visit back then. But the rest of the floors downwards were place I didn't get to see due to security. As if something is hidden there from me and the children from the past.

"The reeky air of this place is not calming me down. Could it be smoggy here?" Vana asks.

"I don't find it too smelly." I look at her shriveling body.

"_Maybe her Grass typing makes her more sensitive."_ This is something that I agree with Cybele. It could have been better the fact that she can talk to me via her psychic skills. One part of me makes me wonder if she could have been a psychic and flying type pokemon instead of being a bug type.

"Spew…spew…spew…" What the heck is that cry? I never of that one pokemon before, say to myself.

"Run back," quickly running back, Cybele points me to a cluttered bedroom fitted with scattered, standing beds. Perfect, I just had to hide there until this next zombie loses its attention on us. As our pursuer gets closer to our room, Vana hid under the bed found on the opposite end of the room while Cybele probably finds a way to stay above the ceiling. Turning my battery refilled camera, he catches a glimpse on what looks like a tag with the number 665 tied on what looks like a modern string.

"_665? Just what is this thing anyway?"_ I ask myself

Just behind me, I hear another cry behind me, "Spewpa. Stop this! Don't do this to me. I know you're still there buddy. Please!" Curiosity made me turn around my bed once this tagged undead isn't looking at me.

"Spewpa? Just who is this spewpa?" When I get to turn around hidden under the same bed, I film an inescapable event as I record that tagged zombie boy grabbing a pokemon wrapped with some kind of coating with random square dots excluding its possible face that I can't see either with my camera or my eyes.

Its constant wailing and plead only wrinkles my gut as if pokemon are becoming more and more like us humans for my perspective. As it sits down on the floor nearly looking at my direction, zombie number 665 opens its mouth until it starts biting and ripping off a pokemon that I do not know like a hungry Luxray. The sight of this kind of food chain makes me desperate to puke out my gut out of disgust, forcing myself to close my eyes like Uxie.

After a few minutes of filling its stomach by eating a raw living pokemon, it sloppily walks away on the door-less entrance returning to the abandoned hallway.

When I crawl out of the bed though, my stomach grumbles, "You want to eat my eggs Motto?" my butterfly girl mockingly jokes at me.

"Don't. Talk." I said to Cybele.

"Motto. Look at this thing. I found this on the bed I was hiding." Vana passes me on what looks like a bracelet.

"_A bracelet. Guess I could have a souvenir to myself. If I'm out alive."_ Wearing it on my left arm, I check on a desk filled with empty folders. One particular folder, however, has papers within it stamped by the word "CONFIDENTIAL". _"Maybe I should read it here while I can."_ Flipping the contents of the folder, amongst all of the gibberish writing, three pictures catch my eyes. _"Three pokemon that resembles familiar pokemon. Yet, they are not."_

With my two companions looking at those as well, we are now a group of strangers inside my ruined school that just found three pictures of pokemon that I could compare with.

Yet they are also not pokemon at the same time.

"Who are those pokemon motto?" Vana asks me. All I can say to them is no idea at all. With a recording of a new pokemon I haven't seen, something tells me that – like the picture I picked up- I am in a familiar place that completely remodeled itself: like creating a new hive every day.


	7. Klefki and the Gate

**Author's Note: This story has been improved in many ways since I last introduced this years ago. But personally, I'm trying to have a good grasp of writing an investigation story similar to Outlast and Detective Conan.**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7: Klefki and the Gate<strong>

As we continue exploring the second floor looking for things that may help me find my friends, a lot of times, they are pretty pointless. When we find the stairs, a group of zombies are guarding the next floor: about six of them from what I can guess.

"_Arceus. What should I do now?"_ After pondering the possible options, the sight of rusty garbage snaps in my instantly.

"What is it you're thinking Motto?" Vana asks.

"Does any of you know how to lure someone into a corner? Only to find nothing is there?" I whisper to them.

"_Are you asking us to play tag with them? You better be joking camera guy."_ Even if our situation is serious, one part of me is joyful that I get to give Cybele a shock.

"Don't worry Cybele. This floor is cluttered with broken stones, tin cans, loose bricks, and other metallic things. So I bet you two now know what I'm thinking."

"Like. Tossing the scrap near those guys to get their attention." Her swinging arm blades fit the idea I'm sharing.

Petting her head is a way that I can say confidently, "You read my mind Vana. That's good for you."

"_And I thought that I'm a Psychic type. I should toss a can on your head if I could."_ Telepathically she teases me won't stop me from being judgmental.

Leaning myself on the wall, "Sorry Cybele. I don't fully trust you yet. But…"

"Be honest with us Motto. She's like sister to you. Your sister pokemon as I should call that." Even if Vana plays her role as Cybele's mother, her tendency to give us flattery is rather good for me. Yet, I kinda agree with her. I mean, she _was_ a motherly woman as a human back then.

"Let's not dawdle. Let get those junk from the room next to where we hid ourselves." Leaving the fortified stairs, we check on the room while we pick up a couple loose bricks mixed with stones and rocks. However, one particular item catches my eye, "Could this help us? I mean, there are keys on it. This key ring…"

The moment I grab onto the bulging part with my hand, my hand gets shocked as I get a numbing treatment of electricity flowing through my arm. "W-wha-what the? The key chain's alive?!" throughout the pain, I let it go expecting it to fall down. But it ends up floating.

"Klefki!Klef!Kiiii!Klef!Klefki!"Oh dear. Don't tell me this is a pokemon I've never seen before. While Vana is talking with that thing in her language, Cybele and I are now testing something that she wants me to do; something along the lines of sticking her psychic powers into my brain so that I can understand the language of pokemon. I mean, all I have to do is to close my eyes until she instructs me to open them again. For me, it feels like some kind of string –two of them perhaps- are connecting itself inside my brain where I felt like something is put inside it; kinda like veins and aortas.

"_Open now."_ Not only do I clearly understand and hear every word that this object pokemon is rambling, she actually retains my eyesight.

"-just what right does this human have to muffle my poor little key chain face!"

"I hate rambling pokemon like you personally little key chain. So shut up! And tell me what in the world are you?" I cross my arms as a personal necessity for control.

"Or what? Order this leafy bug to take the keys I steal?" angrily says this key chain pokemon whatever its name may be.

"Motto. Don't get too bossy." After that peacemaker side, Vana steps up for me as she looks at the levitating pokemon. "I'm sorry about this human. But all he asks is to who are you."

"Klefki. That's my species name." it says.

"Clef…key? Okay okay. Sorry for what I'm just about to do to you: toss you to the ground near those zombies." I said to this floating key chain pokemon.

"You don't know about my kind huh?" with a nod, I answer its question. "Now let ME ask you three a question. What were you doing here?"

"We're trying to explore the depths of this school ruins…" for the minutes we stay in that room, I tell it about my purpose inside this place along with everything that the three of us did. "…and this is where we are now. Just getting through that gate."

"Hhhmmmm… you look like someone that I knew human."

"Knew?" I ask.

"Or so my mom told me back then. Some kid who's deathly afraid of bug type pokemon. But I don't know. It could be any other kid…" Klefki, as I say it correctly this time, sways a bit on air. "Anyway. For you to get to the remaining floors of this place, you're going to need my help. For this floor, one of those unfortunate human-pokefied-zombies is carrying the key for this floor. Leave that job to me. But, for the rest of the guards though, you have to find other ways to get through the gate."

With our new companion, we settle on our previous plan tweaked with our little Klefki.


	8. Plea of Surrender

**Valiant Emblem:**

**Chapter 8: Plea of surrender**

Two corners right before the gate, Vana and me are hugging on the walls –Vana on the left while I'm on the right- just catching the clinging of a worn out moldy brick near those zombies courtesy of Cybele. Just like in the horror movie of Pokestar Studios where the Monster and Pink Zombies terrorize the graveyards, the pokemon-crying-zombie walks toward our trap.

As she clings on the ceiling doing small flaps in order to avoid detection, I toss my pickup rusty can and slam it on the floor I'm standing now.

"Aarrriii…" as it follows the source of the sound I just made, I motion my arm at Vana to get herself ready by hugging her back on the locker while I'm hiding inside the old locker itself. Counting our execution inside my head, the steps of that creeper get closer and closer. Just when it's about to look on the small holes…

Vana swings her blade arms cutting of its head by her X-Scissor as blood drops out all over the place it's standing now. After it thuds down, I get out of the locker as I grab the key hanging on what remains on its neck.

Long story short, we had to do it five more times just to get the correct "Gate B2 Key" says our keychain pokemon.

"Human, ought to check one more room from this floor before we head downstairs?" Klefki wiggles itself emphasizing the polished bronze key. Giving it a nod, we head a couple corridors to the most northwestern room of the floor we're currently at. Like most of the floor, we didn't light it up thanks to those gibbering grumbling zombies. Using my camera's night vision, I get a glimpse of the room filled with scattered pens, books, and lots of paper stacked folders. Oddly enough, the papers –coupled with the occasional pictures- are filled with pokemon pictures and a bucket amount of calculus enough to blow my brains off. That is until this folder comes out from the table I've been digging.

**RESEARCH CONFIDENTIAL**

**01 / 01 / 2021**

**#012267666#**

"Mind if you two stay in here while I get a torch?" after that, I pet Vana to assist me on our walk back to the previous stairs. Cybele on the other hand roosts on the same paper filled table.

It's when we start to talk along the hallway she gets to speak once more, "Motto."

"Yes?" I said.

"Personally, I find this place scarier. Not only when we dive deeper, but also from finding those folders you're checking now." As I pick up an old torch stick next to the torch lamp, I place it next to the flame until it catches a nice size of flames.

"Vana. Even if I'm the guy who's willing to save my true companions, one part of me is confused as to how you're still talking human tongue like me," My giggle synchs with her blushing face. "Those pictures I found back upstairs, those pokemon oddly look like Scizor, Heracross, and Pinsir. Yet I find them more like an artist's own version of those pokemon. Coupled with the random math papers that it had, I find it out of the ordinary for this school to possess such things. Let alone leaving those behind."

As we return to our room with Cybele hanging on my head again, I look upon those pictures once again. However, the pictures are clearly visible for us to see, "A-ain't that you, Butterfree? A Beautifly? And a Vivillon?" Klefki's keys are swirling around itself on its shaky reply.

"Klefki? What else do you know? Except I don't know this one pink winged butterfly." I said to the keychain.

"D-don't tell me? You're dealing with them?"

"Them? What do you mean by-" suddenly, this annoying keychain electrocutes me to numbing my entire body once more as it glides away from us. "HEY! What the meaning of that?!" Thunder wave is my guess.

"Motto!" as my butterfly pokemon spits out her own string shot, Klefki sways away.

"I can't let you go there! Please give up on what you're doing!" just before I could even stand up Cybele pursues her all the while I hear the constant Klefki and Butterfree gibber cry all over the hallway. I end up being a sitting nosepass on my old school in ruins under a mother bug pokemon's care carefully easing my pain. As if getting paralyzed back then isn't enough, the amount of volts I just take is much more that I feel like getting cooked on the inside.

* * *

><p>A couple quiver dances later, rather than getting the Lasso she just sets up, "Klefki! Please wait! Why did you hurt him before he even asks?" Klefi stops in midair: just waiting to get ensnared by its string shot.<p>

"Don't you even think I never saw you three. I just had a glimpse of you, and your mother, carrying that man inside here while hiding from those other unfortunate humans as well. I was hoping that after your encounters up there, it would be enough for you three to never go back here. You forgot your promise!"

That last word eventually emits flashbacks inside her mind during her past days while the school is still on going with its life. But the last time she saw Klefi was during the day when it was going to be abandoned during the landslide, "… wait. Are you … the same klefki that I've met before?"

"The one and only. And you're still a caterpie back then I last saw you." She said.

"Everything now makes sense. And I thought I lost you back then," to think that she lost one of her forgotten friends, the reality stabs her back that this Klefki was the same one she met. "All I recall was that no one should be visiting this place. Not after the landslide that destroyed this place. I've seen your mom crying that you were gone from her life. I was still a metapod when that happened. I'm helpless to do anything."

Mumbling, all Klefi could do is mumble much more to see her childhood friend becoming a young adult butterfly today, "B-butterfree-"

"Call me Cybele instead Klefki. My human named me that way," The butterfly pokemon looks side wards dropping a few tears from her own big eyes. "Your mom and her trainer left. And never came back here convinced that you're dead inside this ruins."

"I see." _"I'm so sorry mom. I'm sorry."_ "I should be smacking you right now for what you've done-" susshed by Cybele, she knew just how much she hates being literally hit.

"Don't foul play me now Klefki. Truth is, I'm going to have to convince you to let us find his friends that were just captured here."

Leaving a sigh, "So you knew what just happened here in this region. Tell me then Cybele, as the gate guardian of this ruins, why should I allow you three to dive deeper inside where only death awaits for that human along with his already dead companions?" Klefi asks.

If she sees this Klefki as the one she met years ago, security is tight; for she could only give one –and somehow excusable- reason to let then in further. It's an excuse that will make Motto rather mad if she says it like that.

"Klefki. That human, Motto, saved me from near death. In fact, he is …"


	9. Brother? Sister?

**Chapter 9: Brother? Sister?**

So much had changed to my best friend. The fact that her mannerisms are mixed with some human soul, I have nothing to respond about Butterfree's –Cybele in her human part request- troubles. But to help this stupid guy save those two boys, I find it very stupid. Yet for the sake of her sanity and her so called brother, after giving myself some thoughts, I may as well tell them the story of what truly happened here through the evidences I hid all over this place.

Returning back to the room, I look at him under that other pokemon's care. "Mister human. Sorry for my impulsive response. Hope you could forgive me for that. Just, got traumatized."

As the young man slowly stands up from his cross leg seat, "Well, at least you're not a bug pokemon unlike these two girls. So, I could forgive you on that electric shock." Picking up his glowing camera like object –not like the old cameras that I knew before-, I sway on air next to the grass type pokemon companion waiting for what's next. That is, the human and my long lost buddy talking to each other.

"What did you just said?! Uhhh," as if he just discovered a secret, "Vana. Wait for us outside. Bring Klefki with you."

Waiting outside of the empty hall, I bet that those two odd siblings are having an argument of their own behind doors: mostly playing rough on each other. "Are they naturally that way? And is that human hate your type so much?" I ask the leafy bug.

"They're like brother and sister the way I see it. Yet he hates us both." Try as I can to complain that the two are incompatible, she doesn't seem to be fazed about that kind of relationship. I don't find a trainer sense on that human: as if he doesn't have any pokeballs, no trainer experience too.

* * *

><p>"-Did you have to give that as an excuse on that keychain poke that I'm your brother?" pissed as Motto is right now, he has to cooperate with me.<p>

_"I had no other choice to lie at her. At least that worked. Shouldn't you be thanking me Motto? Don't be too ungrateful!"_ I said to his tired face in the middle of concentrating my mind to transmit it inside his mind again.

"You could have made a much better excuse Cybele. In fact, how did you even know that pokemon anyway? Have you two met before when you were still human?"

_"No. But when I habited this body, I've seen every memory that this pokemon had in her mind. That means I also felt the emotions of its memories. That what I still believe up until now. I'm just butterfree before you came to my broken life."_

"Cybele. I find you becoming more and more bizarre now. Try as I could to like you, I still hate you for that weird lying excuse. Heck, I can't even decide on what I should do with you." With a frustrated sigh, guts tell me to stick with the plan.

_"You think that I-"_ as she's getting ready to flap her insect wings, the door breaks apart flying towards us. As I strafe on my left, Cybele flaps upwards to the ceiling. Had we been closer to the door, both of us could end up with broken parts on the floor. Like a stalker, it enters the room like a gentleman mended with intimidation stalking every nerve of our skin.

"Scizor." "Freeee…" "Sci…" whatever these two are talking about to each other, the mere presence of this pokemon crying like a hissing snake scares me. As she lands onto my head, she strands my mind with her telekinetic powers once more as she roosts on my head.

"You must be the intruder whose been killing my subjects. My master finds you rather persistent on even saving your friends." As I ask it on what it wants from me, "Look now human. I'm just here to tell you my master's message. He wants me to tell you that your friends are still alive." Surprised as I am, it passes me a bag. "He told me that you could use a bit of 'evidences' to really ask you something. 'We', will be waiting."

As it leaves the scene, the other two join alongside us as I open the bag containing the same three pictures that I just found back then.

"Look like he beats me to it," Curiously, I ask Klefki on what she means by it, "I'm supposed to show you these things just to convince you to get away from this place while you still can. You may as well read those things." Opening the first folder with the first three pokemon I have seen, I speak out the introduction written on these research papers.

**_Years ago, I was a young Pokemon Fitness Trainer helping various pokemon obtain their maximum potential not just in battles but also in survival. Bug types were my specialty. Thus, it saddens me when any trainer with a Scizor or Heracross mocks other bug catchers for not using those two; specifically at the Pokemon Elite Trainers Academy. Not only that, but those two had a hidden form that I find as an unfair advantage compared to the rest. Only Pinsir's hidden form is the one that I consider as a fair blessing. Which is why I began my observations and research for the hidden forms that I could make for the forgotten bug type pokemon._**

This research papers makes me find it hard to ingest at once. That is inside the things Scizor gave me, that similar picture of my friends appears one more. This paper containing the drawing of the Snivy tail and Combee hive medal I'm looking at has something that is not supposed to be there: nine numbers smelling like blood. "Don't tell me that you're going down now human? Scizor warned you…" said the floating keychain.

All it takes for me to go down is the last picture. Witnessing something out of the ordinary, I proceed with my hesitant companions to head deeper inside my ruined school.

But when we go down to the next floor, it leaves me shocked to find a ruined school turned to something I would seriously have to record and present to the rest of the world.

"Motto. Please don't tell me you are willing to do this." Vana said.

"Forgive me. But this has taken me to something that I have to deal with…"


	10. Silent Operations

_"Flasks? Thermometers? Beakers? This was not a laboratory back then!"_ as I bash myself in my head with this conflicting change, the more I find myself staring at the blood stained floor in shock.

"Motto. What's wrong? Didn't humans live inside this place back then?" I nod at Vana's surprised face, "But why are you shocked about this place?"

"I still remember this one floor. All of them were just plain classrooms built by the constructors along with the Dugtrios and Excadrills. This was never a human laboratory. The blood…" try as I could to hold off the past memories, I can't hold back my tears.

As Klefki floats next to my wrenching crying face, "This is why I wanted you three to run away in the first place." I pause in silence. "Hidden from the public, a group of humans turned this ruins into some kind of disgusting hospital. They have been kidnapping some human and pokemon bodies just to kill them for their sick experimental ritual."

"The tragic thing is, they have experimented with almost every bug type pokemon in existence. I'm afraid your friends have become like those mindless Poke-Zombies." No. There is no way I am giving up from thinking that I'm too late to save them!

"But Klefki. Those human undead are not morphed into us." Cybele said.

Convincing them to walk and explore the place while having conversation with each other, I get to film this abandoned human lab filled with sickening corpses of bug pokemon and humans lying dead on their operation beds, "That's the thing. My mom's trainer is against the illegal experimentation of fusing pokemon and human bodies. Yet those people that took over the place, they were doing it here safe and sound." Klefki stops moving on a corner.

_"So, humans that reside in here after the natural calamity were doing illegal human and pokemon experimentations? Why wasn't it presented on the newspapers? More importantly, how did the few residents that warned about this place know about this place? Could they have been victims like me?"_ the deeper I evaluate everything that has happen so far, I still couldn't explain the one in Cybele and Vana's case. The two of them told me that their souls are transferred to their current pokemon bodies.

"Yet something confuses the logic of the existence of this place," I look at Vana's face who sticks close to me away from the sight of many dead bodies. "Vana. Did I tell you about the human body that Cybele and I just murdered?" shaking her leafy head side wards, I face palm myself from not doing this earlier; though she still remembers seeing her human body's remains done by my hand and Cybele's paws and wings. "One part of me agrees that illegal things were done here involving some kind of scientific fusion, it didn't match the memories that my two companions had."

"Which is?" Klefki looks at my camera as I replay the scene where the three of us were talking with each other about their shifting of bodies.

"… amidst all of this, both of them still remember their bodies. But very small fragments of their human past." I said to everyone as the high tech lights –though somewhat worn out yet functional- flicker every now and then darkening the place with the echo of a generator somewhere of this floor.

For Klefki, it finds it unusual. Though Cybele insists me that Klefki is a girl. I'll start calling her a she while she leads us to her hiding spot of a certain emergency room where she kept herself hidden from the experimentations done by those mysterious people, "Usually, while the pokemon that wakes up once more did get more conscious on what is happening, the human becomes insane. Oddly enough, the experiments they've been doing were very fatal to both. The pokemon couldn't defend itself like it should have been. The human body and its broken mind went extremely feral. The results on what happened vary: from sexual rape, to eating the pokemon like prey, and other horrible things."

Not wanting to talk about the incident with the Galvantula and the undead human rapist, I quietly show to Klefki the one event where I was under the bed recording a human eating a pokemon that Klefki called Spewpa. Oddly enough, the tag intrigues us both. All of us pity on what happened to those pokemon. Maybe I am not afraid of my past fears anymore after mentioning those two events again.

All of a sudden, the lights crack away in Flicker as if the wind chills all of our souls.

**"Freeee. Butter … free. Freee. Butterfreee."**

Just as I frantically turn my camera everywhere recording with night vision on once more, somewhere in my leg feels ghastly wet and cold. As I turn around, I could not believe that the same girl came back. But, it is clothed with tattered clothes that oddly remind me of someone before.

Had it not been to Cybele, I would have been panicking and screaming by now. Cybele tells me to follow her since this dead girl knows her. "Help me."


	11. Broken Voices

**Valiant Emblem:**

**Chapter 11: Broken Voices**

Gliding its decaying fingers, every strand of my hair being strung numbs my remaining courage. "Foll … ow. Foll … low. Free." Now that I look at my camera, seeing the RECORD icon still blinking didn't convince me to stop recording on what's happening. Follow this dead, untapped human victim we follow. Silence tells all four of us to do what it tells us lest this butterfree- crying-human zombie possibly devouring me.

After a couple hallways, we end up in a room filled with scattered CD cases on the floor near an old TV set with a CD player. For an abandoned place, I'm surprised that the equipment on this room is still running. Gesturing me to play a CD box that this dead girl is holding, I pick the case while I press a couple buttons to turn it on.

"_I think that I have an idea of this place being powered by not much more than its remaining power generator."_ I said to myself

Klefki asks me, "Mister. I hear metallic clinging grunting all over this room. What is it?"

"That could be it. What I just said to myself: Power Generator. The humans may have built one on this place," I said. "Have any of you three saw big metallic structures near this school back then? Before it got caught by the landslide?"

The two bug types shook their heads side wards as Klefki tells me that there was one built here ten months ago to get energy from the strong winds of this forest. But the landslide destroyed them all so she says to me.

Clicking the play button on the CD player, the TV screen flickers its first couple film slides.

"Et maintenant! Nous allons commencer le rituel de l'évolution! Temps pour ce malheureux Papilusion de s'épanouir encore plus loin! Que notre jeune homme est la clé!"

Everything we see on the TV leaves me unable to speak. Everything surrounding the bon fire catches my eyes: notably, native ritual items I have never seen before. Crafted sticks of totem poles from Unova surround a struggling butterfree while another set surrounds a struggling human girl. The two unfortunate offerings are positioned inside a circular lining sketched from the ground. There are other lines inside that I just couldn't figure in my head no thanks to the darkness of that room.

"Bénédictions trouvés dans Kalos, Xerneas, Yveltal, et Zygarde. Donnez-nous vos bénédictions chance pour nous de débloquer caché pierre de l'évolution de ce pokemon!"

"Nooo! Nooo! Lemme go! Lemme go! I wanna see daddy again! I don't wanna die now! Please let me go! I'm scared to die! DADDY! Help me!"

"Butterfreeee! Freeeee! Butter! Butterfreee! FREEEE!"

"Lugulabre! Tutankafer! Noctunoir! Laissez le rituel commence!"

With the band of drums drumming the enchantment all around the room, the two ghost pokemon hold its two captives suspended in air held by their psychic powers. But the fire type ghost followed the mysterious cloaked man. It's language leaves me very confused as to what he's saying

"Lugulabre. Allumez mes lames avec vos flammes. Préparez-vous à activer les talismans et les étiquettes de l'âme."

Obeying without a whim, it lights the knives with the blue fire that chandelure owns. As it stops walking in between the two totems, it sets its arms with knives just in reach of the two victims. Like Vana who's shuddering to the point of passing out, my right hand remains motionless. Klefki is jingling out of control from watching the TV like Cybele unintentionally creating an uncontrollable, yet really faint bug buzz over my head.

Then the man stabs both of its victims: the chest for the girl, the small abdomen to the butterfree. Their agonizing death was one thing. But what scares me even further to the core is getting a look of a living soul in its physical form scrambling within the inescapable transparent white walls. While the little soul girl tries slamming her ghostly hands, the soul butterfree attempts to tackle itself on the invisible wall. Any attempt they tried, the walls shows a pulse spreading itself all around them. The talismans are impenetrable. I find it hard to imagine unable to escape such walls if I ever die on my deathbed.

"Cryptero! Utilisez votre pouvoir conserver sur cette pierre. Que les âmes entrent en collision ensemble. Ainsi, si les deux sont morts au cours du processus, nous obtenons la pierre d'évolution. Si l'un ou les deux âmes vivent, ils peuvent habiter leur nouveau corps. Peut-être expérimenter encore plus loin avec les possibilités ..."

With our eyes focused on the stone floating within a translucent wall of talisman energy of sorts bridging the totems like an underground pipe, the talismans glow even brighter like an aquamarine polished many times that could absorb light. Then the two souls morph to a pipe like strand colliding with the stone and each other creating a powerful echo blast on the stone itself. Due to the souls collision, the room shrouds itself with a blinding light forcing us to blink away for a moment. But when it settles down, I find a mysterious strand fading out slowly above the stone.

"_Is that … Human DNA?"_


	12. Hallway of Souls

_"Glad you get to find out about that human. Time to give you a surprise."_ After blending its metallic body behind his audience, he stretches his arms smacking all four of his guests with swift metallic punches all over them. Falling down akin to an overripe fruit from a berry tree, all but the keychain pokemon remains floating above the floor stuttering its words out of the fear he comes to remember.

"S-scs-scssi-sci-sciz—scizor…" getting out of its protective state, she looks eye to eye out of numbness and defeat. "Y-you… killed them here. Bu-but. But it's too soon for them-"

"Shut up Kisa!" fearing the next bullet punch, her mouth remains as hard as stone unable to speak. "This should have been routine for you already! Why are you trying to defy me, your master?"

Her jingles were once owned by joy. Now, that youthful jingle fears for its life, "It's … it is…"

"Speak up you stupid kid chain!" its chainsaw like claws strike a threat to Klefki for her to speak up.

"He-he's the kid that I saw on this school when it was still standing! Motto is that one kid I've seen before who greatly feared you bug type pokemon! I just want him not to end up like-" without the need for more words, Scizor comatose Klefki with a blind power up punch to her tiny head until she loses her grip on her keys and lands on Motto's unconscious body.

As he looks on Motto's right arm, "Drats. Looks like you wanted to show to the world the other side of me and my cult. You have messed with the wrong person … buddy," Carrying everyone all by himself, he walks down the stairs heading to another floor below this abandoned building bringing his client to a prison chamber. _"But … I think he … should come to us to witness the ritual anyway. I'm glad that you finally overcome your entomophobia. Time for me to seal the deal…"_

* * *

><p><em>"Uhhhh… owww. My head felt like … slugged."<em> The moment I open my eyes, a snivy tail and combee pattern glows hanging on the ceiling. _"What … happened?"_ the way I'm talking now sounds hoarse as if I'm greatly dehydrated.

"Uuuuhhhhhh…mmm…mo…" having insect wings tapping my chest, Cybele oddly ends up lying on her back. But that makes her unable to stand back since her wings aren't flapping enough motion to fly back up.

"Cybele. Let me get you back up." Lifting my left arm and hand, I gently lift her back until she sits on my belly properly. Couple flaps from her wings later, she gets up flying up above my head. "Cybele. Where are we now?"

_"I … I dunno this place."_ She telepathizes her beaten response.

"Oh. You two are awake," looking to the left as I slowly get up, Vana mends a little pillow cushion made out of her own string to Klefki. Whatever happened to her that is, I cannot tell. "I'm too worried that neither of you two would ever get up."

"Since when did you wake up?" Cybele looks around her. While she minds her on business, a woven cocoon string lies down scattered on the floor. As I reach on my forehead, my hand touches a silky bandage since it tells me that my leafy companion tended my forehead.

"A couple minutes ago with Klefki. Unlike me, she passed out again out of phobia," Breathing in and out, seeing her frowning mouth gives my guts a bad feeling that I'm in between a tyranitar and an aggron fighting over a land. "Your forehead was bleeding Motto. I had to treat it quickly before you lost too much blood." She looks on Cybele this time, "On the other hand, your back and little body is beaten up roughly which nearly made you unable to fly."

With everything that leads us to this sealed, small red room, I ask myself as to who knocked us out cold. When we ask Vana about Klefki, she tells us that she passed out due to the walls, the floor, and ceiling painted in 'blood'. Suspicious about the term, I tried to peel a bit of red coating on the wall to see if it's just modern coated painting. After a couple scratches, I didn't get any peeling at all. The red substance sticks on the wall. What strengthened the 'blood' term is the scent of the air around us. This stench overwhelmed us. _"Maybe Klefki is afraid of blood. Being a pokemon owned by a doctor really sucks if you end up seeing this place."_

Just as I'm about to stand up, Vana gives me an envelope containing some kind of letter. But seeing the red stamp holding the seal unease me. Seeing the symbol of my school logo, the symbol above my head, and then the letter, all three are the same, exact thing that forebodes me that makes me regret my decision to come here. Just as I remember about my camera, I look around only to find it not in this room. _"Whoever beaten me up must have stolen it."_

Then I open the envelope, pick up the letter, and read its message.

Congratulations for solving the mystery mister Motto Lokomo. It's been centuries since we had a victim attempt to reveal this cult to the world. Many times my ancestors kept this hidden over many centuries. Right now, our ancient craftsmanship will become the key to the rise of our future. Just before we do so, I invited you and your bug pokemon friends to your last breathing ground. Had you not recorded that show that I gave you, I may have spared you. Alas, you want your friends back, come to us.

Keep walking on the hallway. And see our grand creations.

Swallowing my doubts away, I stand up and open the door. Whatever awaits my fate, for me, I only have one more road to cross.

Like our prison room, everything is painted stench blood red. While Vana carries Klefki in her unconsciousness; Cybele rests on top of my head talking with me through her telepathy. The more she trains my mind with her power, the more my brain starts to tingle with this simple pulse of energy as if I developed a sixth sense overtime.

The hallway feels like squeezing my soul and will for what I'm witnessing with my own eyes. In each of the glass prisons on the left and right are imprisoned bodies. On the left prison rooms, rotting corpses of individual dead bug type pokemon are everywhere. On one panel is the corpse of a moss covered parasect corpse. I figured that none of these pokemon died naturally. But what terrifies us is seeing the illusory soul of the parasect panicking at the back corner of the room. Simply, it's like a wispy wind that couldn't get out since the talismans sticking on the side wall behind the glass wall created the same kind of wall that I've watched to that unfortunate butterfree. On the right side however is a human corpse left to rot naked with a soul ending up charging at us with fury. Yet it couldn't get out thanks to those similar mythical papers. Just above it is a post containing its former human name and age.

With the dim golden light hanging on the ceiling, designed with the same snivy tail and combee body, lighting our way, it chills me physically and mentally as if these ghosts are trying to extinguish my soul for such a small hallway. Looking on the next pair of glass prison columns, it is the same process as well. Just with a different pokemon and human. Though what I noticed is that all of the dead pokemon and the souls I've seen are fully evolved. Only Scyther is the pre-evolution on these sadistic ritual prisons.

But on the thirteenth column, its sides are empty. No soul lingering around its sealed chamber. But when I look at the posting of the right side, _"Motto. I think … this can't be. Is it me? That girl whom I inhabited? Who … who got killed? I don't want to remember it!"_

When I look inside, that zombie girl ends up imprisoned here pointing her hand above me. Looking at the message written on the post, my mouth just couldn't talk out from what I see now.

#012: Kelse Landmore

Mega Butterfree Evolution

Friday, 11 / 13

Ritual: Successful

Subjects: Alive

"Let the mega pokemon evolution commence." It is when this man steps out of the shadows that truly leaves me motionless. With the Scizor that I met, claws stained with a bit of my blood.


	13. A Sadist's Love

**Chapter 13: A Sadistic Gift**

"Welcome back my daughter. Did you like my birthday present?" right in front of us is the person I never expect to see. "Oh. I forgot to greet you Mister Motto. Like my place?!"

"No. No. No way. No way! Mister Zark Landmore," checking the content of prison number twelve, bones are scattered inside. Yet the girl that was just there vanished. "You … killed these beings within this ruined school?" I ask him as Cybele stares on the logo above the glass prison.

His smile would be a smile that comes now to haunt me. The smile of a psychopath matching his staring eyes, "Ohohohohoo. Yes I did. Haven't you even notice my voice on the video that you spied upon? Look at the prison once more Motto. Reveal yourself butterfree! A soul like you couldn't hide forever in these ruins!" Paying attention to the same glass prison, the presence of this ghost butterfree appears once more. For a moment, its wispy body molds to the girl that I just saw moments ago for a couple seconds before it reverts back to its butterfree form.

"Papa. Am I really your daughter?" As much as I felt like the need to intervene, Cybele and Zark are having their family issues now. Cybele or Kelse, I don't care about the name. Sir Landmore answers yes. That one proud "Yes" boils something hot within me as Cybele cries all over my head.

"Professor Zark! Haven't you even realized your actions at all?! You just murdered your daughter for this … this ritual place!" I backlash my words at this murderous parent. Losing your family is one thing. But if the loss was from murder, that is something that I greatly despise.

Stepping his foot forward like a running Tauros, I take a step back, "Ain't that the same way that happened to you and your family years ago mister Lokomo?!" Family? That one word stops me from arguing back.

_"How did he know about my family? What does he know?" I ask within my thought._

"I knew that my plan has gone through flawlessly. I bet it's time to know the truth Motto," waving his left hand to come at him, that taunting call made me follow him on his walk. "Remember the natural calamity that happened on this underground school you used to study? The landslide was a man-made plan using the pokemon by mixing the mountain soil with water and guide the flow with the wind to the direction of your school." His Scizor evolution follows behind us as Zark speaks.

Learning about that event leaves my mind in shock. But a lingering questions pops in my head, "If you killed your daughter just for some stone ritual, did you use the bug types to kill my family?" I ask.

"Hmmm … no. I never ordered my swarm to kill you and your beggar family nor drugged my swarming pokemon to kill you. Your family was just unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time. But…"

"But?" all three of us ask.

"I know just about EVERYTHING about you," my small step back shakes me up only unnerves everything that happened to my life. "The line patterns above our heads! The bug type pokemon that our cult has murdered many times to obtain the sacred stones! The robes we wear during the rituals like the ancient Kalos priests! Don't you even realize the simple yet cleverly hidden clues Motto?! I thought you were smarter than the average man."

_"A snivy's tail. A combee's body. Bug type pokemon. Humans. Stones with ancient tags. The DNA."_ "Don't tell me that the cult of ancient Unova would also be the cult that you had today." I said.

Arriving at a big, dark room, he stops walking while we struggle to see through the dark. The chilling wind inside doesn't help with the looming fear happening inside my head that I lost notice of Vana who's carrying the unconscious klefki.

"I knew you would figure it out. But you forgot Kalos Motto. Everything that I told you back when we first met was merely an actor's ruse. A con man perhaps. Your friends, I erased their memories about you permanently, fitting for you to fall upon my act. Now, they serve under my will. Anyways, the purpose of this place was to continue the ritual of our ancient ancestors. We, the Talimos, are a cult dedicated to create Mega Stones and very powerful …" as light shines in this room, we find ourselves within a bloody battle arena. "…permanent Mega Pokemon!"

All around us is a crowd in robes shouting a loud cry of battle. Through his lines, it echoes all over the place. Right ahead in front of us are the presence of pokemon that changed their looks. Twenty six of them in fact eye on us. Charizard for instance has two new looks for having a much more draconian element. Ampharos has grown wool all over its head and tail like its wearing some wig of hair from an ancient queen. Heracross looks like its wearing a heavy armor alongside its massive horn. Simply, they are pokemon that truly become even more powerful like a paladin that simply does not give up.

"Don't you see what we did here Motto? We made these pokemon even MORE POWERFUL than ever before. They were just temporary back then. But with our newfound ritual, they won't ever revert to their original maximum evolution. THAT is what my daughter to become! It is my daughter's wish after all. Now you got it Kelse my daughter."

"Nooo! Noonoononononooo! I never wanted to be pokemon because of this! I don't want to fight!" Kelse, no, Cybele denies her so called father's gift after everything that he did not just to this butterfree but also to his human daughter.

Just within me, anger boils inside like I've never been this furious in my life. To see a father forcing her daughter to fight unwillingly only maddens me the fact that I have never been a pokemon trainer in my life. I don't know what to do now to keep her alive. All throughout my life, I see pokemon battles as a brutal sport. Now, it repeats itself right before my eyes. Looking behind me, Klefki and Vana are calling for help right behind the glass prison which his Mega Scizor, courtesy of the ID tag it's wearing on its neck, placed it next to it however it did it that is.

Approaching me, he grabs my right arm. Seeing this bracelet that I got way back surprises me as he places a glowing stone on the bulging cap of the bracelet, "Oh! I forgot to mention to you that you cannot avoid this battle Motto. The fact that you are wearing a Mega Bracelet makes it even more symbolic to my cult. So you are forced to fight me for you, and your friends' freedom. In fact, if Kelse wins the tourney alive, I'll let you keep her as your daughter."

"But what if I lose?" as I finish that question, his Scizor leaps away from the two imprisoned pokemon and lands in front of me with one claw close to the face acting as a threat to my life.

"If you lose however, I will use your soul along with another pokemon to create a new mega stone for another pokemon. In fact, I think I could let you inhabit another butterfree to keep my sister company. You could make her your mate if you are greedy enough. But still, you will die like your family of beggars on trash."

With a finger snap, his Scizor leaves me be as it stands next to its master.

"Motto. Please don't lose to him! Save us!" numb is my frightened body is due to the fear of inescapable death and inexperienced, but to see a little girl stuck in a pokemon's body to eternally suffer from her father's whim overcomes my fear. My fear of her bug type kind had been saved thanks to her.

It is then that I become vengeful to this cruel father.

"Cybele! If you wanna be free from your father, I need your help to set us free! You have to defeat him in a battle!" swinging my arms down, I never felt my blood rushing all over my body this fast.

Then she stares at me with sharp, angry eyes as her wings flaps a bit harder, "Motto! Are you still an idiot?! I cannot fight very well like the rest of those pokemon! I'll end up losing in an instant!" after hearing this, it makes me miss her bossy side.

"Where is the butterfree that controlled me to aid me on this journey?! Couldn't you do the same to these foes?" I exaggerate my question.

"Hello?! The fact that you are not a pokemon trainer ever in your life justifies our instant defeat you dimwit brother!" to call me a dimwit only adds my anger right now of all times where my life matters. Getting smacked by a gust to the face blows me off a bit as I crash to the ground.

I have no choice in the end, I will lose my life. "Stop calling me your brother gosh dang it! Just listen to me right now! WE! WILL! FIGHT!" stomping the ground helps me vent out some of my anger at least.

"Fine! But remember my promise to you Motto. If I die first, I will haunt you down for eternity!" with my conviction agreed, I stand back up.

Looking at my wrist, the stone attached to the bracelet starts to glow brightly in a rainbow-ish color. The crowd's cheer goes wild when my battle approaches its last stand.

"Motto Lokomo. To start the battle, press the stone on your bracelet and witness the power of Mega Evolution!" as he points his fists to me, so does his Scizor that's already mega. The fact that Cybele will end up getting cut buy its chainsaw like arms frightened me even further.

"I'll make sure of that!" slamming my left fingers to the stone, I punch the air with my right fist pointing to Cybele's murderous father. "You'll pay for taking everything away from me! So listen to me you traitor. Your daughter will kill you!"

But what catches my attention is that Cybele, my butterfree begins to glow bright in a circular light. Then I get to witness a butterfree that looks … powerful.


	14. NU vs OU

Looking at her presence, she grows a bit bigger. Looking at her wings, its design has turned from simple structural lines to lines that seem to bend naturally as if it became small strands of wings attached to her insect like wings. Her actual wings are now pure white seeing it at her back. Yet in each flap, the ground I'm stepping on creates a lavender pulse around her.

As she tilts her head towards me, much of her face remains the same. But looking at her antennae, it ended up becoming wispy lines like her wings, "I … never felt smarter in my life Motto. I feel … mighty."

"Are you talking to me? Or is it telepathically?" I ask while I stare at the beauty of her eyes. However the stone did it to her, Cybele's eyes have developed pupils and irises closely designed like a human being. _"Or what's left of her humanity…"_

"Do I have to note you again mister Lokomo? Your pokemon has achieved flawless human speech. She's a vocal telepath now. The clear lavender tone of her human like eyes, the intricacy of her wing's pattern. Not fully changed but greatly enhanced. The pulse beneath us in every flap she creates! Psychic I must say!" her father exclaims his joy proudly to everyone around him.

"Motto, meditate for me to power up our bond." As I close my eyes, my mind suddenly gets bombarded with knowledge that is out of my understanding. Echoes all around my head whisper within me the skills of a pokemon trainer: an Ace class. Then she looks back to Zark and says, "Papa. I hate you for hurting me when I was still a little girl. Now I regret my past ignorance. I should not have wished for me to become a pokemon. But you did it for me anyway, but painfully wrong."

_"This dad be better ready to face discrimination against me."_ Cybele's skills, strengths, weaknesses, and limits stick themselves within my memory.

"Hmph. You are still a piece of cake for me little butterfly. All it takes is one strike." Whatever made Zark's Scizor talk human is something I'll bother with later. Maybe Cybele did something with my mind. Stepping my right foot forward, I stare against my childhood adversary that puts our lives on the battlefield.

"Strike with your fists now!" despite its heavy armor, Zark's Scizor still moves blistering fast towards Cybele.

"String shot Scizor and dance around him within distance!" tossing her string shot forward, she evades his pokemon's bullet punch falling for our trap. Cybele continues to lasso her string around Scizor's metallic body as she quivers her wings further. The faster she quivers her wings, the stronger the pulses emanate on the ground which tells me the boost of strength that she is having at the moment.

"Don't get binded Scizor! U-turn your way out!" no amount of string could hold this Scizor back. I can't deny his popularity with the elites.

"Disconnect from your string and silver wind this guy!" flapping her wings toward the pokemon charging towards her, it takes plenty of hits against it. But what stopped me to tell her to dodge is that I'm risking a bet to help us beat him. As the two collided explosively on each other, both of our pokemon flew towards us. While Zark moves away, I couldn't get away in time as her little body hits me to the face knocking me down to the bloody floor. Cybele heavy breathing must have happened thanks to his Mega Scizor high strength. She may be flapping but it only makes me worry on how long she could last. That U-turn badly hurt her. His Scizor on the other hand eyes us furiously. Its iron fists have been punctured pretty hard by Cybele's attack. But when I look close enough, a deep metal scar nearly punctured its eye, just below its left eye. Standing up from the ground, I look at the sheer strength of the two pokemon in battle.

_"This thrill. The thrill of life and death. Win and defeat…"_ telling that to myself, my body suddenly erupts on my being endless adrenaline that I never experienced before. But on Zark's case, I may have unleashed his inner beast through his anger. Cybele may have damaged his left eye by the collision of the two attacks.

"Bullet punch!" Zark commands with an iron finger pointing to both of us.

"Fly above Cybele!" as soon as she flies up, I never realized that Zark does something that I never even thought he would do: attack a human trainer with one's pokemon. Every hit from the bullet punch striking my body hurts so much as if I am breaking my ribs and face piece by piece until my body painfully grinds on the ground before hitting the wall. Try as I could to move, my body isn't replying at all. Everything quickly gets cold as I cough out some blood from my mouth and wounds. _"Am I … dying? Hmph. I am sorry everyone. I couldn't save you Cybele. I hope that you will be spared instead. I've been the biggest disappointment ever. So, feel free to haunt me now Cybele. If you die too…"_

Losing my though, losing my taste, losing my hearing, and now, I lost everything. I'll just be a forgotten human. Left to die… in pitch darkness.

* * *

><p>(Moments before Motto died.)<p>

"Oowowowowwoowow! It hurts!" the moment I look down at the ground, I realize the mistake Motto did. My daddy isn't attacking me. He's using Scizor to attack him head on. Every hit that Motto gets oddly returns to me too as Scizor quickly continues his assault of punches depleting my strength. The moment he gets launched forward by my enemy's iron fist one more time, I lose my balance in flying as I desperately try to stay afloat flapping around. Too bad for me I crash on the ground at my back. Try as I could to flap back up or use my newly developed mental powers, I feel the pain everywhere leaving me to agonize the pain.

Seeing my human dad walk towards me, he lightly steps his left foot at my fragile body. Each press of his step hurts me so much after all the beating that happened to me. "Like your past self Kelse, you don't know the consequence of your actions. Had you not bonded telepathically with him a moment ago, you would not have fallen with him the moment I told my Scizor to attack him." That taunting from my dad just makes me lose my faith and will to live on. "Sorry Kelse. You lose. You betrayed your brother and savior. He will die."

I scream out in agony the harder he presses his foot it to me as his Scizor watches over me until I pass out of exhaustion and lack of air. It made me wish that he just squished me dead like a dead butterfly. But what hurts me the most are the words Scizor said to me.

"You are just not ready for me. You are garbage…"


	15. Epilogue

Walking on the bloody hallways, Zark Landmore carries his pokemon daughter on his arms. The small crew of acolytes behind him carries the bodies of Vana, Kisa, and Motto. While the human officially died out of internal bleeding and injuries, Vana and Kisa were induced with a powerful spore that knocked them in a coma behind the scenes of the ongoing fight to avoid cheating on the battle. While one part of him leaves him proudly joyful of his achievement, hearing his daughter's denial of her new life bitterly hurts him within. Everything that he did for his daughter ended up becoming nothing at all.

The fact that his adversary honors his family, for him, Motto's unintentional recording of the event frightened him the most. Of all the fears that he had, losing his community of mega stone makers would be like losing the family that made him a part of that cult. His weak childhood pokemon were given a chance to rise in power and dignity and esteem. Maybe they weren't different at all.

As they reached the exit of the school minutes later, they dropped the bodies near the gate. For the butterfree however, he places his barely living daughter lying on her belly next to her dead human partner.

_"Time to mature. Kelse. Just like Motto."_ After looking back, Zark leaves them walking back the underground ruins.

* * *

><p><strong>One Year later:<strong>

"I'm sorry for your loss. You took it worse than me." Looking at my visitor, my guess goes by the name of Floette. Meeting her a month ago as my guest, she is very small for a pokemon who's just as tall as the black lavender flower that she carries with every single day of her life. Her small, blue and white pixie body makes me see her as a young teenager. In fact, she told me that is three thousand years old. Klefki actually knew her so much since she was a legend in her origin region.

Learning from Klefki and Floette herself about Floette's beloved king and the war three thousand years ago in a distant region named Kalos, it made me realized that I'm not the only one who suffered such a loss. She lived so long that she understands everything that's been going on with me. My body never went back to its original form. Thus, I ended up hiding everywhere that I could to avoid human contact. "But you should be thankful for what you did to your brother Butterfree. You helped him change his view on bug type pokemon. You made him love you like other pokemon too. At least his death wasn't in vain."

"But Floette. You can't die like us. I'm jealous of you. If only he-" she taps her flower to my little mouth.

"Being immortal is a greater curse than what you even thought about Butterfree. Just like my human husband, if you can't let go of your guilt for not saving him, you'll end up nowhere in life. Because…"

"Because?" I ask.

"… that is all that I wanted for my beloved AZ to do. Forgive himself. I wanted the AZ that loved me so much. Not the monster he became that killed many humans and pokemon just to bring me back to life. Please butterfree. Forgive yourself for your brother's sake." I remain silent asking myself so many things.

"I'll give it some thought. Thanks…" since today is Floette's final stay, she gives me a nod as she leaves my new home in the woods of Kalos. Though I found it three months ago as a new home, I still miss Motto so badly.

_"I failed to save him. I threatened him many times, teased him, criticized him, punished him. Now, I must … be thankful for him."_ As I look out on the hollow of the tree, the dark rainy clouds go away as the cloudy skies return. It may take me time to be hopeful again. But now, I must somber.

* * *

><p><strong>A Bittersweet The End.<strong>


End file.
